Athletico home debut in the South American against the unknown Zuliano Ray, from Venezuela. The duel between the teams will be this Tuesday (9), at 9:30 pm, at the Ligga Arena, for the second round of the tournament.
The Venezuelan team is from the city of Maracaibo, in the state of Zuli, almost 700 km from the capital Caracas. The club was founded in 2005 and played in the third division until 2010. Then, it was refounded in 2021 and started to play in the second division. In 2023, he inherited his place in the local elite after merging with Zulia, a club from the same city.
Zulia was better known internationally, having already reached the quarter-finals of the South American Championship in 2019 and even faced Chapecoense in the group stage of the 2017 Libertadores. Zuliano is going into its first clash with a Brazilian in its short history.
Classification for the current edition of Sula was achieved after finishing the Venezuelan Championship in eighth place overall, with 36 points in 28 games – the last in the classified area.
Campaign in season
Rayo Zuliano is going through a crisis in 2024 and only has one win in 13 games. In the opening tournament of the Venezuelan, in 11 games, the team only won one, had three draws and another seven defeats. With just six points, Zuliano is 12th out of 14 teams – only one team falls. In the last round, on Saturday (6), the team finished 2-2 with Carabobo.
In the South American Championship, the club beat Deportivo La Guaira 4-2 on penalties (0-0 draw in normal time). In the group stage debut, they were defeated 2-0 by Danubio, in Venezuela. In total, 13 goals were scored and 21 conceded.
The team has its own recently renovated stadium, José Encarnación Romero, with capacity for more than 45 thousand fans and which was the venue for the 2007 Copa América, but is playing at the Brígido Iriarte National Olympic Stadium, in Caracas, as required by Conmebol